Why Kerry is wrong on ‘bilateral talks’ with North Korea

Jon Snyder, a thoughtful commenter, asks what advantage six-nation negotiations would have over two-nation talks on North Korea’s illegal nuclear program.

In other words, wouldn't it be wiser if the United States bargained alone with North Korea? Sen. John Kerry has supported such "bilateral talks." Would they make sense?

As Jon put it:

"[M]y impression over the years was that North Korea's primary motivation for promoting bilateral dialog between itself and the U.S. in lieu of multilateral dialog (not merely discussions over nuclear issues, but other issues as well) was to diplomatically insult South Korea as a ‘puppet’ of the United States.

"On the obverse, the United State’s main reason for steering clear of bilateral talks was because we consider South Korea to be a legitimate country and consider their interests to be important relative to our own.

"Bush’s assertion that the reason for avoiding bilateral talks was that they would conflict with multilateral discussions hardly seems compelling to the same degree. Kerry, by proposing that we should move to bilateral dialog, appears not to realize this either.

"Any further thoughts?"

Lots of further thoughts.

The multilateral approach is infinitely preferable, and it’s not because it recognizes South Korea’s equal status. It’s because the multilateral approach confronts North Korea with so much more power that it has a real chance of a peaceful outcome.

For the United States, the problem is, the "rest of the world" (meaning generally Europe, Japan and sometimes China) pretends to be multilateralist, but whenever a tough problem comes up, it maneuvers deftly with feigned ignorance until the problem is left to the United States alone.

Multilateralism is almost always in U.S. interests, and unfortunately, it seldom happens, because the rest of the world presumes the United States will do all the important work in confronting tyrants.

Other nations know the Americans feel morally compelled to help the world’s oppressed. With the evidence of history, those other nations are certain they don’t have to lift a finger, and the hard and heroic work usually will get done – by the United States.

That’s just the problem. France, Germany and Russia were too selfish to join the liberation of Iraq. They knew the U.S. would do it. That’s why many of the Brits are mad at Tony Blair. They want to know why they couldn’t ride the same free ride.

Right now, look at the diplomacy over the Sudan’s genocide. Europe is dancing the same clever dance, trying to paint the U.S. into the same "the problem is all yours" corner, and yet pretending to care.

Which brings us to North Korea.

First, ask yourself this. Except for the abused and enslaved North Korean people themselves, whose problem is North Korea?

On a moral level, it’s China’s problem. China saved the little monster regime back in 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea. China also gave North Korea the ideology of Karl Marx (not a noted Asian thinker) on which to build its impenetrably suffocating police state.

On a military level, China has to worry about Kim Jong-Il assembling a nuclear arsenal, if only because Kim’s bombs might encourage Japan to develop a nuclear deterrent in response. China might see Kim’s atom bombs as only a nuisance, but China has a visceral fear of a Japan with its own independent nuclear weapons.

Still, China would love to let the United States deal with North Korea unilaterally. (That's bilaterally, if you count North Korea as talking seriously.)

If North Korea were negotiating one-on-one with the United States, all the pressure would be on the Americans to "solve" the problem. Kim desperately wanted this arrangement, not to insult South Korea, but to give him his best chance of picking America’s deep pockets.

In the bilateral mode, Kim could renew his mad extortion scheme, demanding free oil from the U.S. in exchange for a vague and unverifiable promise to stop making atom bombs. China would laugh each time Kim walked away from the bargaining table, knowing that the U.S. by itself would be taking blame for the faltering talks.

While the United States was tied up with embarrassingly impossible negotiations, China would focus all its energies on its mischief-making high priority: finishing plans to invade Taiwan and crush democracy there.

When the North Korea talks inevitably collapsed, the United States would approach the United Nations alone for an international response. The "rest of the world" would feel free to accuse the U.S. of failure and declare the North Korea problem as the hamhanded Americans’. Then, to divert attention from its selfishness, the "rest of the world" would announce that whatever the United States did next was wrong.

There is a better way. Yes, it’s multilateralism. And Bush, as dumb as he may be in some areas, has handled this remarkably well with North Korea.

Bush insisted that China, Russia, Japan and, of course, South Korea be included in the talks over North Korea’s illegal nuclear weapons program.

With all these nations negotiating, each one stakes its political credibility on an acceptable outcome. And if the talks break down, five major powers – not just one – can go together to the United Nations to make the case for a world response.

China, which shares a border with North Korea, has the leverage to persuade the tyrannical "Dear Leader" to do almost anything. To a lesser degree, so does Russia, with its port of Vladivostok just a short-range missile away.

And throughout the talks, Japan need only keep a poker face. Let China guess whether Japan would seriously consider nuclear weapons of its own.

Meanwhile, South Korea finally is awakening to the threat in the North. For years, large numbers of South Koreans had been deceiving themselves into believing the U.S. had troops in South Korea because the Americans wanted to be there. The South felt that complacent about the North.

Bush changed that soft thinking by announcing he was withdrawing about a third of the 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea. Suddenly, the South Koreans realized they might have to defend themselves from Kim Jong-Il. Bush’s troop reduction also had the helpful effect of undermining Kim’s claim that the U.S. was about to attack him.

Time for the rest of the world. In the Korean War, 40,000 Americans, including my Uncle Carl, died to save South Korea from North Korea’s aggression. Only the South Koreans suffered more allied casualties in that U.N. "police action." For more than 50 years, the United States has kept tens of thousands of troops in South Korea, holding North Korea at bay as democracy and freedom developed south of the DMZ. Haven’t the Americans done enough of the work there?

Much of the "rest of the world" – and Senator Kerry – say the United States should confront the new Korean crisis on its own. But why should the U.S. be obliged to solve this by itself? Exactly how could that approach be successful? And in any case, isn’t it time the "rest of the world" did its share, too?

Frank Warner

Comments

[jj]

North Korea is like the crazy drunk at the traffic light who smears your car's windshield with a dirty rag and then demands money. As the event repeats daily with varying levels of threat and abuse, your sympathy disappears -- no matter what bilateral strategy you may adopt. At some point you realize that an acceptable resolution requires community action.

[Carl]

Once we get the UN to issue resolutions against North Korea that number in the double digits, then we can act unilaterally.